Insights - November 2015 - (Page 7)

State Legislative Update Anti-Indemnification Bill Signed in New Jersey A new law in New Jersey voids any provision in a motor carrier transportation contract that indemnifies the promisee. Signed by Gov. Chris Christie on Oct. 1 after passage in both the state Assembly and Senate, the law was scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, 2015. The bill was amended to provide that a motor carrier transportation contract does not include the Uniform Intermodal Interchange and Facilities Access Agreement. The measure leaves just seven states without a mandate prohibiting indemnity agreements in motor carrier contracts. Bills remain active in New York (A.B. 7307 and S.B. 4173), Ohio (H.B. 71) and Rhode Island (H.B. 6111). Arkansas passed a version of the same law in March. In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law S.B. 63, which allows port or harbor infrastructure to be financed by an enhanced infrastructure financing district. Other measures aimed at enhancing trade and transportation opportunities remain under consideration in several statehouses, including Maine (S.P. 531), New Jersey (A.B. 4028 and S.B. 2739), New York (S.B. 2648), Pennsylvania (S.B. 224) and South Carolina (S.B. 743). On Oct. 10, Governor Brown also signed into law A.B. 621, the Drayage Truck Operators Motor Carrier Employer Amnesty Program. The law provides options to relieve a motor carrier performing drayage services of liability for misclassification of commercial drivers as independent contractors. Other bills addressing proper classification of truck drivers and/or related issues, such as unemployment FMCSA Metrics Dig Deeper Cliff Creech, chair of the Maintenance and Repair Committee and NS group manager of intermodal maintenance and contracts, again presented FMCSA metrics for intermodal equipment during the committee's meeting at Intermodal EXPO this year. Overall, Mr. Creech noted that though intermodal volumes continue to rise approximately five percent yearover-year, out-of-service rates have not materially increased. Roadside inspections were broken out into five groups, with Levels 1 and 5 accounting for just over half. Level 1 includes the tractor with the driver present, Level 5 does not. Both these full inspection levels involve going underneath the vehicle. Just over 32 percent of roadside inspections resulted in OOS equipment. This was consistent with at least the last four and a half years. Reported inspections were up dramatically in 2015, in part due to receiving new federal level inspection information that was not received in the past. Other findings were the following: * Distributions of the inspections showed 59 percent of the inspections are done in California. * When there was an out-of-service event, it was the chassis that was put out of service most often (59 percent of the time). However, despite some small increases in 2013 and 2014, chassis OOS rates were dropping and remained below 2008 levels. * Lights continued to be the top chassis OOS violation. The next most common violation was a catch-all category for the overall condition of the chassis - inspection repair and maintenance. * At about half the rate of lights, tires were a distant third mostcommon reason for chassis OOS. In a new data mining effort, this year's review compared the Driver Vehicle Examination Report data to the GIER equipment registry file. Of the data that could be measured, 78 percent of the OOS chassis were international and 22 percent domestic. Newer chassis had fewer problems than older chassis. Looking at the violations by type of chassis (domestic vs. international), lights were again the top OOS violation, followed by brakes and tires. And in each instance, the majority of violations were on international chassis. Next steps for the committee included continuing to benchmark equipment condition from DVER data and expansion of the areas analyzed to include a comparison to road service repair data, terminal roadability repair information and outgate counts. Mr. Creech also urged a deeper analysis of state-level and equipment age-level data. The results of the various analyses would be used to prioritize IANA committee initiatives. States - continued on page 8 November 2015 | Intermodal Insights 7

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Insights - November 2015

PTC Extended to December 2018
SMS Data Sufficient Says FMCSA
CII Recognizes IANA’s Casey
Official IANA 2016 Board Election Results
Driving Change for Intermodal Growth
State Legislative Update
FMCSA Metrics Dig Deeper
Freight Reports
Scenes from EXPO 2015
Sustainability News
Port News
People in the News
In Brief
2015 Sponsors
Welcome New Members
Intermodal Calendar

Insights - November 2015